<p>Auli Järvelä embarked on her artistic career in the 1970s. With her sketchbook always at hand, she captures people in everyday situations. Grown ups on their way to work, children playing, dancing couples. Rather than being portrayed as specific individuals, they are conveyors of certain feelings and characteristics. Järvelä’s approach to paint is also emotionally intense. Her singular style is expressive and dazzlingly colourful. This is also true of her watercolours, although this is not her usual medium. Here, light itself is the key motif. There is a warmth even to the cooler gamut, as if the light was within the darkness and playing in the subtle mist of thinly layered colours that hover delicately on the surface. The fluid watercolours seem to vibrate with sensory impressions. Moods and feelings undulate through Järvelä’s pictures, like waves. Auli Järvelä was educated at the Free Art School and the Aalto School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki and at the Saint Petersburg Repin Academy of Arts.</p>

Artwork: Auli Järvelä, Watercolour No. 25, 2001